Individualized Paths
Individualized Paths
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Providing individualized pathways for students is one way to increase engagement by allowing for students to make choices based on their interests and learning styles. Creating these pathways for students is important for a personalized classroom setting, because it personalizes the students' learning and allows them to demonstrate voice and choice in their learning. When students feel like they have a say in their education, they tend to put forth more effort and care more about obtaining the knowledge and skills, especially because they can put it into a context that is relevant and meaningful to them. According to the GAPSC Standards for Personalized Learning, teachers can incorporate individualized paths through preparing learners to "be aware of competency-based learning progressions and to make informed choices in co-planning a unique pathway and pace towards mastery of the curriculum". Educators should be working with their students to establish appropriately challenging activities, utilize data to determine pathway progression, and move towards independence with their mastery. Barron (2010) discusses how students develop "islands of expertise" when they are young, and these topics become foundational as they pursue other subjects in school; educators can provide opportunities for students to tie in their islands of expertise and build on it within the context of the current curriculum to increase relevance and authenticity of learning. The educator can serve as a bridge for the student in order to merge contexts and create learning opportunities for students to explore new topics while connecting them to prior knowledge to promote continual learning and building understanding.
There are different levels or personalization and individualization that educators can incorporate into their classrooms. The Personalized Learning team from Dallas Independent School District (n.d.) created a resource that explains the different between Beginning, Developing, Practicing, and Achieving. For example, some characteristics of the Practicing and Achieving levels are all students completing their own pathway, incorporating non-academic goals such as social emotional learning, customizing the pathway either at the individual or group level, and continually adapting the pathways as needed. One way that teachers can easily incorporate an individualized pathway is to provide a playlist that has options for students so that they can choose their activities based on their preferences, learning styles, and goals (Vander Ark, 2015). With a playlist the educator can provide a list of options for students to choose from when working towards mastery, and the students are able to take control of their learning by selecting the items that appeal the most to them. This also improves professional practice, because the educator has to plan different ways in which students can access resources to learn in the best possible way for them.
In his article, Pappas (2015) shares seven tips for creating these individual paths, including empowering students, providing checkpoints, and giving immediate feedback that is also constructive. By providing these individualized paths, students feel like they can take ownership of their education, because they are able to exercise voice and choice to cater their learning to what works for them. Because of this, students are a lot more likely to be engaged in learning the curriculum. They should be able to make choices in which activities to complete in which order, how they will receive the content, and potentially even how they would like to be assessed on their mastery (e.g. multiple choice test vs. project). While students are all working on different activities at different times, one thing that can help ensure that all students are meeting mastery is a checkpoint. Teachers can utilize self-assessments and checklists for students so that they can exercise executive function skills and keep themselves on track, and the teacher can use this data to assist with student guidance on their paths. Finally, as students are completing different activities, the teacher should be providing immediate and constructive feedback to eliminate problems that may occur due to students continuing on with incorrect knowledge. For example, in my Latin class, it would be detrimental for a student to complete grammatical content and then move forward to a Latin story with an incorrect understanding, so it is essential that I address students' current progress before they move on to the next element of their pathway.
Overall, creating an individualized path for each student can be overwhelming, but there are strategies and resources that educators can use to make it manageable. The impact that individualizing pathways has on students is well worth the effort, because it helps to make them more independent and more engaged in their own education. Educators can help create lifelong learners in their students by allowing them to incorporate their interests, learning styles, and personal goals into their education.
Co-Plan and Co-Design Learning Pathways
Co-Plan and Co-Design Learning Pathways
The largest portion of each of our Latin chapters is a set of Latin stories. According to our standards, when students read and translate passages the students, some skills they must master are:
CLII.CO1A. Demonstrate expanded knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, and syntax appropriate to Latin II.
CLII.CO1B. Employ techniques to assist in reading comprehension.
CLII.CO1C. Demonstrate reading comprehension of adapted and authentic Latin passages.
We have been working on co-planning and co-designing ways for students to demonstrate their mastery with these passages in different manners. For example, I co-planned with two different students for how they would demonstrate mastery in vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and reading comprehension for one of the stories in Stage 17.
Student 1 is a logical learner who prefers to write things down or type. She usually opts for a written translation, because it helps her to put all the "puzzle pieces" (different vocabulary words and grammatical constructions) together into one large piece that she can read. In Stage 17, the new grammar was the genitive noun case, which indicates possession, such as "the streets of the city" or "the temple of Serapis". This student was having trouble differentiating among the noun cases, because this was the fifth noun case the students learned about. For this story, titled "ad templum", the student wanted to type up a translation and highlight both the Latin story and the corresponding translation for the different noun cases so that she could see the differentiation and show her mastery of the new concept by appropriately identifying and translating them. She typed into a Google Doc and used the highlighting tool for the different noun cases. Her feedback was that this really helped her to differentiate between the noun cases and she felt like she could explain the content better, so she plans to continue using this format in the future. Also, an unintended consequence of her completing her assignment in this manner was that she really had to think about which words were nouns so that she could highlight them appropriately, and this assisted her with learning the difference between nouns and adjectives in Latin.
Student 2 is an auditory and visual learner. He enjoys any learning opportunity that allows him to be creative, draw, speak, listen to something, etc. He is generally one of my helpers in the classroom, because he has stated that hearing himself explaining the concepts to other students helps him ensure that he knows the content, and he enjoys the challenge of becoming the teacher in that moment. For this same story, "ad templum", this student chose to make a presentation with Adobe Creative Cloud Express (previously Adobe Spark) in which he would have the story on the slides and then do a voiceover reading it and explaining the grammar. When we co-planned together, he decided he wanted to do something that mimicked those moments where he helps his peers since hearing himself explain a concept helps him learn, so we decided on this format. He highly enjoyed it and he was more engaged than usual, and he is making plans to continue bringing this creativity to his assignments as well as finding ways in which he can act as the teacher to master the content.
Use of Assessment Data for Co-Planning Learning Paths
Use of Assessment Data for Co-Planning Learning Paths
Once we completed Stages 15-17 from the Cambridge Latin Course, students took an assessment over the vocabulary, grammatical, and cultural information from those three chapters. On the same day that students took the assessment, they received their score, and we used the data from this assessment to decide what students would do next as we began Stage 18.
Student #1 struggled with the grammatical concept of different verb tenses in Latin. Students were working with four different verb tenses: present, imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect. Student #1 has mastered the present tense, but there was still some confusion between the imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect, all of which are different past tenses. When we co-planned, we decided that the student needed to establish this knowledge before moving forward to the new chapter's grammar. She decided that she was going to create a presentation that explained the differences and provided examples of each verb tense. I created a formative assessment for her to complete after she was happy with her presentation, and I provided feedback once she had completed both to ensure that she had mastered the content.
Student #2 struggled with the vocabulary and English derivatives. One standard that students must meet is being able to build on their English skills through the study of Latin, so we discuss English derivatives from Latin roots. Student #2 answered incorrectly on all of the derivatives questions. We sat down together to discuss the derivatives from Stages 15-17. During our co-planning the student decided that he was going to go through the new vocabulary terms and test himself over them, and then once he felt comfortable with their meaning, he was going to choose ten from the list (of twenty-two words) and find English derivatives that he would then use in a sentence to help him remember the meanings of the words. This helped him to get off on the right foot with the new vocabulary, and he was able to help other students both when we saw the vocabulary in the context of a story as well as when a derivative came up in conversation.
Student #3 showed mastery in all areas of the assessment, but one thing that helps this student learn is helping and teaching others. Even though student #3 demonstrated mastery and could have moved forward independently, she decided during our co-planning that she wanted to spend at least one class period assisting her peers who were working on their mastery before moving forward. She created her own mini study guide to teach from for the grammatical and cultural information, and then she spent her time walking around the classroom and providing feedback to her peers. She is interested in becoming a teacher, so we found a way for her to solidify her curriculum mastery while also completing an activity that related to her interests and learning styles and allowed her to help others.
Coaching Learners Towards Independence
Coaching Learners Towards Independence
One important factor for making individualized paths work in the classroom is coaching learners towards independence. Teachers can provide activities or strategies to ensure that students become more independent in their learning, because creating individualized paths for each student is a lot of work on a teacher, but giving them the ability to reflect and move forward as they are able can really assist the entire class on making this environment effective.
One activity that I provide for my students to self-monitor and self-reflect when there is a more difficult grammar topic is a Gimkit homework game. For example, for Stage 19, the topic is imperatives (commands). I created a Gimkit game that allowed students to test their knowledge of the different types of imperatives, how they are formed, how they are translated into English, and a few other topics related to imperatives. Students have the option to practice with the grammar Gimkit when they first get to class in order to prepare, after they have completed a larger assignment, or even at home. By monitoring their own progress within the Gimkit and having to apply the grammatical knowledge, they can then reflect on whether they have mastered the content or they need additional assistance. As we have gone through Stage 19, I have had students who felt like they mastered the grammar based on how they did on their Gimkit checks and they successfully moved forward to more advanced activities using grammar in their stories. On the other hand, I have had students who reflected and felt like they needed more assistance, so I sat down with them and we worked together on the base knowledge, then I assisted them through the Gimkit for a few minutes, and then they tried on their own and informed me of their comfort level once they were finished. The screenshot on the left is from the results of a student whose accuracy was at 62%. Once he completed this exercise, he met with me to go back through the content, I scaffolded another Gimkit exercise for him, and then when he completed it again on his own, his accuracy jumped up to 97%, so he did show mastery and moved forward to a Latin story.
One of my students struggles with learning the new vocabulary words. Since students can be working on different activities and content at any given time, we created a routine for her to work on her vocabulary where she doesn't have to rely on other students or on whole group activities. When she comes into class, she runs through the vocabulary list first by herself and then with me. Then, as she is going through her main activity for the class period, she makes sure to highlight or star any new vocabulary word as she comes across it. Finally, once she has finished her activity, she chooses a formative assessment (Gimkit, Blooket, Quizlet, flashcards, etc.) that she runs through, and then she does one last final check with me. It can be a lot to fit in on days when she is doing a larger project, but she has improved on her ability to recognize words and come up with their meaning off the top of her head at a faster rate, she has improved in her reading comprehension, and she has said this monitoring makes her feel more in control of her vocabulary learning. She also has been more independent on moving forward with vocabulary and has begun looking up extra words that she is interested in knowing in Latin on her own time so that she can incorporate them into whatever she is working on in class!
I have a student who is very into learning languages in general. Latin is one of five that she either knows or is currently learning, and she has goals to learn more in the future. Because she is very into the content, she is always engaged and motivated to move faster than her peers. Since she is in such a unique situation, we have begun co-planning for new topics to move her beyond the class. For example, we are going to stop our curriculum for the semester around Stage 25, and the students will finish their language requirement so they won't be moving further after this school year. This student is interested in the chapters after Stage 25, particularly the vocabulary, so she wants to learn more throughout this semester. She has a desire to stay at a steady pace with most of her peers so that she can assist them as needed, so between when she finishes a chapter and starts a new one, she is welcome to explore any vocabulary, grammar, or cultural topic that she is interested in. I have told her that I am willing to help her learn anything she wants in those intermediate times, so she will co-plan with me as needed for assistance. I have also shared additional resources such as a list of Latin animal names, because she wants to learn as many vocabulary words as possible.
References
References
Barron, B. (2010, April 1). Conceptualizing and tracing learning pathways over time and setting.
http://www.life-slc.org/nsf/linkd/files/Barron.NSSE.tracing.learning.pathways.%202010.pdf
Dallas Independent School District. (n.d.). Personalized learning pathways. The PL Toolbox. https://www.thepltoolbox.com/learningpathways.html
Georgia Professional Standards Commission. (2019, January 15). GAPSC standards for personalized learning.
https://www.gapsc.com/Rules/Current/EducatorPreparation/505-3-.108.pdf?dt=%3C%25
Pappas, C. (2015, November 30). 7 tips to create personal learning paths in elearning.
https://elearningindustry.com/7-tips-create-personal-learning-paths-elearning
Vander Ark, T. (2015, November 10). The perks of personalized pathways and playlists. Getting Smart.
https://www.gettingsmart.com/2015/11/10/the-perks-of-personalized-pathways-playlists/
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